Under the Cedars

Creased green bills of cash. An exchange of hands with a stranger. Careful not to touch his hand awkwardly as I let go of the coins and they clink and grind against each other in his palm.

"Thanks," He says. "Ugly weather out there, eh?"

I guess it is. These cigarette butt laden sidewalks don't look any better in the rain. From the misted and foggy store window, the blinding yellow hue from the passing headlights is only amplified in this wetness. And the noise! Pitter-patter on the streets, on the sidewalks, on your umbrella, sloshing boots through puddles and jets of murky water shooting out from passing cars. Not to mention the stuffiness in the air and how you feel it under your clothes and-

He already walked out. I hadn't even offered him his receipt. The glass door shut itself softly and muffled out the rain.

I sit back on my stool and it creaks against the dingy linoleum floor. The fluorescent lights above me glow dully while continuing their monotonous buzz. Covered up in my hoodie, the humidity is starting to invade my space. I think about taking off my hoodie. I think about, suddenly, a moment I had forgotten about. As if the planets aligned or just the right set of circumstances had been produced, maybe the heat, maybe the wetness, maybe this feeling of loneliness still threatening every moment in this humble life I made for myself, or rather, found myself in.

Whatever it was, I was there again, on Grandma's rug. I poked at the embers in the fireplace, breaking them into finer pieces, watching the way they glow and sizzle and how once offered a dry chunk of wood, they would rise up in flames, remembering what they had been just prior.

Grandma shifted in her spot on the recliner and set down her book.

"You're a smart boy, ain'tcha?"

I nodded and she let out a laugh.

"What do you know about the woods?"

I thought as long and as hard as a little boy could.

"They got firs and pines, and birches and cedars. They drop big cones to spread their seeds. Buncha little critters like to climb up and-"

Grandma stopped me with another chuckle.

"Ha ha haaa! You know what I mean boy!"

I thought harder and longer. Is she testing me?

"What do you think is really out there?" She added.

Oh. I knew what she was talking about now. The creaking, the bending, the snapping. Sure, you might say "oh, it's only the wind," or "it's the weight from all the snow," but you don't really know, do you? Behind the thick cover of the canopy, where the air is cool and the wind loses its bite, and it feels as if you've left this planet for another; where snails are king, and snakes are wanderers, and birds carry news from far away places.

"Did you see anything out there? Anything you thought you saw?" She prodded.

"Thought I saw a bear!" I exclaimed.

Grown-ups never believe you when you say you saw a bear, but Grandma was different. She knew what was in these woods, she'd been here forever.

"I bet you did! Was it huge and furry?"

I nodded.

"What else?"

I could feel her gaze, she was searching for something in me, coaxing it out. She gave me her big Grandma grin, the same one she gives after pouring more cocoa into my mug. Finally, she gave an earnest nod.

"Nothin?" She asked.

I turn my head back to the fire, recalling the events of that afternoon when the sun was setting just behind the treetops. It gets so dark out there, so quickly. I was examining a ladybug. I didn't know you could find them in the winter, and yet, here it was, crawling up the stick I had picked out for kindling. Grandma told me that they bite. Best not to disturb it, I figured. I can find more sticks.

A crackle above catches me off guard and I drop the stick, less gently than I had meant to. I look up, just in time to see the gentle sway of a branch, and the barn owl that leapt off in flight.

This is when it gets cold, once the sun has been set for some time and the stars begin to peek out; dazzling pin-pricks just above the tops of the trees. I won't have any luck finding kindling in this light, might as well take home what I got.

I was stepping over the crunchy forest floor and the moss-covered logs, dodging the low branches that threatened to scrape my face, and tip-toeing over whatever boulders entered my path while heading in the direction I assumed home was.

A stick snagged my coat as I passed by a long, drooping branch. I set down the kindling so I could work the knotty stick out of my knit sweater. Just as I removed the intruder, a few droplets of water landed on my knuckles, followed by a few more. The downpour grew quickly. I heard it first, as each droplet slapped against nearby leaves in an ever-growing cacophony. Then I felt it, sliding down my forehead and my clothes, quickly threatening to dampen me all the way through.

I left my pile of kindling and ran, it was no good wet anyway. Branches slapped at my face in the dark, logs attacked my legs, and mud tried to hold me still. The woods were trying to keep me. I don't know how I found home but Grandma was already waiting for me under the stoop of the front door.

The pop of an ember brought me back to Grandma's rug, where she sat with calm contentedness in her recliner.

"I saw an owl, too," I told her.

Grandma raised her eyebrows at me.

"You see any monsters?"

"What?" I asked, horrified. Grandma smiled.

"Yup, there's a monster in these parts," she said. "Been gettin' in my garden for long as I remember. Your pap always says it's just beavers or deer, but I swear to God it's somethin' different. Been haunting these parts for a while. I reckon it's what you saw too. That why you come running so fast and out of breath?"

I don't think I saw a monster. I saw a ladybug, and that was odd, and the owl, and maybe a bear earlier. But… hold on a second. Did I see a bear and an owl? I thought back to the rustling behind the bush and the bouncing of the tree branch, and I realize that I hadn't seen an owl or a bear. I just filled in the gaps. What else sneaks behind a bush, or leaps off a branch?

"You'd be surprised what's out there!" Grandma said in her wise, old person way of saying things.

Grandma's words echoed in my head, reanimating parts of my mind and imagination that were long lost, as my keys jingled against each other while I turned the lock in the store's heavy glass door.

Tucking the keys into my pocket, I waded through the puddles on the uneven sidewalk under the heavy glow of yellow streetlights, brushing past other strangers in their sopping hoodies and jackets.

On my way home, I reached a part of the street where the light had burnt out. I looked up. I realized suddenly how I had missed the night sky, and the pigeons, and the moths. I missed those woods, and how each blade of grass looked at the trees and strove to be as tall, and the beavers had their missions, and the ants had campaigns. I missed how you never really knew what rustled behind the bushes, or what the birds were gossiping about, but you were always welcome. The soil sprung up following your every step, and the cedars embraced you with their fern-like branches, blocking out the elements.

I looked up, trying to fit the pieces back together, and for a moment I thought I saw an owl again.